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The great governmental shutdown in Washington turned out to have its utility after all.

It prompted a substantial national debate about the role of government in our nation. It spurred an unusual surge of conversation about Congress, with Americans conducting a national civics lesson and actually examining the performance of their representatives. It raised eternal questions about the balance between conviction and compromise, about the equilibrium between resolve and responsibility. And it illuminated several important themes about American governance that sometimes are explored in isolation but seldom in broad context.

So, a muted cheer for all of those who stuck to their guns while endangering the nation's image, financial stability and role in the world. They shined a bright light on these immutable elements of our system:

• The split between the House and the Senate, which are entirely different bodies, and not only because they operate with different rules.

Sometimes the two chambers move in the same direction -- a good example was how Charles Sumner of the Senate and Thaddeus Stevens of the House operated in tandem during Reconstruction. But oftentimes they don't, or they at least move at different speeds with different timbres; the intensity of the Senate's willingness to defund the Vietnam War in the 1970s, for example, wasn't matched by the House.

This autumn the two bodies are showing their character, the Senate displaying the power of an individual (Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas) to dominate proceedings, the House reminding us that it is ruled by coalitions (the Tea Party). This is only heightened by the fact that the two chambers are ruled by different parties.

• The view of the national interest is different from the heights of the Capitol than it is 16 blocks away in the White House.

It is true that in many respects Senate Democrats and President Barack Obama have the same strategy, which is to hang tough while Tea Party Republicans appear to hang themselves. (That is a good strategy while the poll numbers hang high. Once they drop, that strategy will be dropped, too.)

But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada (and to a lesser extent, because she has less power, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California) have a slightly different perspective.

The Tea Partiers are their opponents, to be sure, but they are also their colleagues. This spending/debt-ceiling crisis is kind of like the Dual Monarchy of Capitol Hill right now, with all the attendant proclivity to catastrophe possessed by Austria-Hungary a century ago.

But someday this struggle will end, or morph into something else. Mr. Obama will be gone from Washington in three years. Many of today's lawmakers will be in the capital for years to come. Mr. Obama may think he is playing for the long term but for him that means the quiet pages (or web pages) of history. The others look to a noisy future, hostages not so much to history as to each other.

Put another way: For Mr. Obama, hell is the next generation's Henry Steele Commager. For lawmakers, it comes straight out of Satre's "Huis-clos": Hell is other people. Each other. And if you're inclined to say to those denizens of the Hill, "Live with it,'' remember that what you mean is this: "Live with each other." Easier said in the theater of the absurd than done in the absurd theater of politics.

• Establishment figures would have put an end to this nonsense, but there is no Establishment anymore.

This new truth of American politics first became evident in 1984, when the Establishment figure in the Democratic Party (former senator and vice president Walter F. Mondale, armed with the endorsement of almost any Democratic politician who mattered, plus the labor movement) barely limped to nomination. It became clearer in 2008, when the Establishment candidate (Hillary Rodham Clinton, wife of a president and a senator from a powerhouse state) was defeated by an insurgent born in a country that doubted any black person could be elected president and who had the additional disadvantage of having almost no experience in high office.

But disestablishmentarianism -- a term rooted in 18th century English church history, a stumper beloved by lexicological wiseguys and a word I finally found a legitimate use for -- became a bipartisan phenomenon a year ago when there were no adults to call a halt to the Republicans' determination to endanger if not doom the inevitable nominee, Mitt Romney. His political death was assisted suicide.

Now there is no Washington Establishment to end the paralysis, which went from the fiscal cliff of New Year's to the continuing resolution crisis of late September to the October hurricane of the debt ceiling.

Should we call in Bob Dole, who loved a deadlock? You must be kidding. In a shameful exhibition of disrespect, Republican senators let him sit in stunned mortification in his wheelchair in the chamber he once strode like a colossus rather than approve his treaty to assist the disabled. Give Bob Strauss a ring? The Democratic national chairman who was a Republican president's choice as ambassador to the Soviet Union? Dream on.

The fact that one (Mr. Dole) is 90 and the other (Mr. Strauss) nearly 95 tells how antiquarian this notion is. And, by the way, Lloyd Cutler has been dead for eight years, Clark Clifford for 15 and Dean Burch for 22.

• Power sometimes resides outside elected office.

We are not speaking here of the people in whose interests Washington is supposed to work. We are speaking of unelected power brokers who, throughout American history, have exerted outsized influence.

In the past they have been figures like Jay Gould, whose analogues today are on Wall Street. Or church figures, like Jonathan Edwards of the Great Awakening, the New England-bred preachers of the Social Gospel, the abolitionist clergymen and their lineal descendants in the black church and rabbinate of the civil-rights movement, or Father Charles Coughlin, the radio priest who turned on Franklin Roosevelt.

Today's outsiders command big money and big megaphones. This month a Bloomberg BusinessWeek cover thumped these words: "John Boehner Doesn't Run Congress. Meet the Man Who Does." And there, on page 71, was a picture of former Sen. Jim DeMint, now the head of the Heritage Foundation. He's not alone. And he's not in elected office.

David Shribman, a Pulitzer Prize winner in journalism, is executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Previously:

10/07/13 The key players in this latest Washington spectacle knew exactly what they were doing
09/23/13 President Obama faces a hostile House, a resurgent Russia and a sense of ... dare we call it malaise?
09/09/13 President Obama puts Syria to a vote in Congress, but must he respect the result?
08/19/13 Pragmatic vs. ideological: What does the GOP want in a president?
08/12/13 A touch of greatness
08/05/13 Captured by the North Koreans, the Pueblo's crew members suffered terribly, and some are suffering still
07/29/13 Politicians, heal thyselves: The president's latest campaign for change has little hope of succeeding
07/22/13 Latest example of a one-term president whose reputation has flourished after leaving office
07/08/13 Watergate's lone unmastered lesson
07/01/13 Before and after Gettysburg
06/24/13 Your life in the age of Big Data
06/17/13 America slips its bonds: Project Mercury lifted off in a more innocent time, but inspires us still
06/13/13 As the World War II veterans depart
06/03/13 Capitol culture shock: The Old Guard of the Senate valued honor most of all, and see little of it today
05/27/13 Patience is a virtue --- and a political strategy
05/20/13 Crossing sacred lines in Washington
05/06/13 The limited power of presidents
04/29/13 Living history on display
04/22/13 Social Security, 21st-century style: Dems call Obama a traitor
04/15/13 49 years, four months, 25 days: Today's America is as far removed from JFK's era as his was from World War I
04/08/13 The Senate as it once was
04/01/13 Connections and coincidence: History is full of mysterious relationships, including clusters of greatness
03/25/13 Where portraits tell the story of America's greatest conflict
03/18/13 A former president's correspondence reveals the power of letters, and the powerlessness of aging
03/11/13 Outrageous spectacle lead to a rational resolution on the budget? A nation can dream, can't it?
02/25/13 The one big thing Democrats and Republicans can actually agree on
02/18/13 Obama is wrong to make young people think college is mainly about making a living
02/11/13 The war inside the GOP
02/04/13 Presidential politics, frozen in place
01/28/13 Speech invokes past for present and future
01/14/13 If Obama's inaugural address is to be remembered at all
01/21/13 Identity crisis in the GOP
01/07/13 History meets firearms
12/31/12 In search of our better angels
12/24/12 Wounded in war, Inouye just kept serving his country
12/10/12 President as change agent
12/10/12 Another overtime election
12/03/12 Defining the Obama presidency: Our re-elected chief executive has the whip hand now, but how will he use
11/19/12 New Hampshire 2016
11/12/12 Obama's second chance
11/05/12 America's first martyr to free speech
10/29/12 Making hay in Iowa
10/15/12 When two men confronted each other from afar as civilization hung in the balance
10/08/12 If you look at the election a certain way, things don't seem so terrible
10/01/12 Debating the debates
09/24/12 Pessimists R Us
08/20/12 Obama remains a puzzle even as he asks the American people for a second chance
08/13/12 With Ryan, Romney upends the conversation
08/06/12 The real Romney remains hidden behind other people's opinions
07/30/12 What summer is for: How August can matter, and how Romney might use it
07/23/12 The Independent son of independent Maine promises to shake up Washington
07/16/12 The Rambler American
07/09/12 The Telstar revolution: Fifty years ago, a 3-foot orb was sent aloft and spawned a new era in communications
07/02/12 It's got only four electoral votes, but Romney and Obama will be fighting for them
06/25/12 A little noted rebellion over a lonely stretch of land helps tell the American story
06/18/12 You're nothing special: Luck is what you make of it . . . and what it makes of you
06/11/12 Anybody can talk authoritatively about the presidential election. Here's how
06/04/12 Candidates love to ally themselves with admired presidents, in sometimes unexpected ways
05/29/12 Americans aren't in a new burst of patriotism but they are in a new burst of appreciation for the military
05/21/12 Inside out: Almost nothing about this year's presidential election conforms to conventional analysis
05/14/12 Lugar grew into an elder statesman, which is why he'll be leaving the Senate
05/07/12 50 years later, MacArthur's farewell to arms continues to inspire
04/30/12 The likability factor: We're going to find out how important it is in these troubled times
04/23/12 Romney's four battles: With the nomination essentially in hand, he must turn to new challenges
04/16/12 For GOPers, expect the frustration to build, not abate
04/09/12 The political battles you cannot see
04/02/12 Romney's roadmap: Doing better in Democratic states may complicate his fall campaign
03/26/12 Romney struggles with same GOP forces his father faced long ago
03/19/12 The writer and the president
03/12/12 Romney could learn from his rivals after Super Tuesday
03/05/12 The GOP race continues, and Republicans continue to grouse about their choices
02/27/12 The turnout threat: when voters vamoose
02/20/12 The Winter's Tale: Republicans are engaged in a 'problem play,' full of psychological, and real, drama
02/13/12 Which Ike to like?
02/08/12 A tale of two elections: Voters today are making their most profound choice since 1912
01/30/12 Whither the GOP establishment?
01/23/12 The Democratic coalition is breaking up
01/09/12 The verdict that wasn't
01/02/12 These are the keys to who will persist
12/19/11 Another Gingrich rebellion
12/12/11 A defining fight for the GOP
12/05/11 A distinct lack of enthusiasm
11/28/11 For GOPers, the winds are beginning to pick up, the horizon is darkening
11/21/11 Today's polarized politics . . . blame FDR and the political scientists
11/11/11The sporting life
11/07/11 Ron Paul, true believer
10/31/11 Why Cain isn't able
10/10/11 GOP starting over
10/03/11 The Forgotten War of 1812
09/26/11 The way we live now
09/19/11 The crisis this time
09/11/11 But what will it mean?
09/05/11 A horse race column: Who might win the GOP nomination and how it might unfold
08/29/11 The vacuum calls
08/22/11 Passion and politics: How Barack Obama and Mitt Romney got crowded into the same dangerous corner
08/15/11 Eleanor's little village
08/08/11 The agony of August
08/01/11 The politics of the impossible: What a country this might be if the political class served the broad interests of the majority
07/25/11 Pennant fever grips 'Burgh
07/18/11 Exemplar of an era
07/11/11 On summer
07/04/11 The soul of the party
06/27/11 What the Secretary said
06/20/11 Romney has big advantages over his rivals, but they will be coming after him
06/06/11 One question each
05/30/11 The 14-week challenge
05/23/11 Delay tactics
05/16/11 Republicans are waiting
05/09/11 Bin Laden is dead. What does it mean?
05/02/11 From nobodies to nominees
04/25/11 The founders left slavery for future generations to settle, and we still haven't fully come to terms with it
04/18/11 From audacious to cautious
04/11/11 Dreaming of space
12/12/10 The GOP takes control
12/06/10 DECEMBER 7
11/29/10 GOP presidential hopefuls already are lining up local supporters in what is now a red state
11/22/10 Burning down the House
11/15/10 Institutions of higher learning are finally beginning to teach important lifeskills
11/04/10 The war has just begun
11/01/10 Echoes of a speech 40 years ago this week still resonate today
10/25/10 50 years ago America chose between two men who were dramatically different --- and eerily similar